ABSTRACT
It is common wisdom among finance and accounting scholars that the primary challenge of risk management is to identify and assess risks (Stulz 2008). Equally clear to all is how difficult this is. Yet this difficulty has largely been overlooked in the emerging strand of accounting research on risk management. In this chapter, we review that research. Then, drawing on some seminal behaviourally and organizationally grounded studies on the development of man-made disasters, we review the less-examined behavioural challenges facing risk management at the outset. We continue from risk identification to what supposedly follows it: management control. Finally, we outline the largely normative accounting literature that addresses some of these behavioural issues and delineate avenues for future research.
